That’s how it was in the first few moments of the fight, at least. But matters quickly devolved as the sheer number of zombies overwhelmed the hobgoblins and forced them to break apart. This allowed more of the zombies to skirt around and hack at the hobgoblins from behind, or bite their legs, or ears, or even throat on one occasion. Blood and gore spilled out onto the ground and sprayed into the air. Fetid blood mixed with flesh flows from arterial cuts as the two forces fought one another in a brutal brawl that soon lost all semblance of order.
>> KILL REWARD [ASSISTED]: 10 Belch bucks
Having thrown several items at the beginning of the fight, Ollie was now racking up kills at speed, and the reward amount had increased given that the zombie enemies were of a higher standard than those that had previously attacked. He drew great pleasure from tricking the System like this and would have been content to just sit back and wait for both sides to slaughter themselves if it weren’t for the fact that he could now see where the fight was heading.
Already, one of the hobgoblins had fallen and was lying on the ground, having its guts torn out by several nearby zombies. The brute had stopped struggling and was just lying there while the zombies made a meal of his innards. Meanwhile, the other hobgoblins struggled against the horde, with dozens of zombies getting cut down so that the ground was littered with writhing bodies and the severed limbs and gore of the dead.
The stench that rose from below was so strong that it almost knocked Ollie off the roof when he caught a whiff of it, carried on the morning breeze. He staggered backward, vision suddenly swimming as he stumbled toward the side of the roof. Fortunately, he had the wits to drop to his knees while the world spun around him and, instead of toppling onto the ground, he simply slumped down onto the rooftop, sucking in clean air in an attempt to dispel the acrid stench from below.
>> KILL REWARD [ASSISTED]: 10 Belch bucks
>> KILL REWARD [ASSISTED]: 15 Belch bucks
>> KILL REWARD [ASSISTED]: 10 Belch bucks
More and more of the kill notifications appeared as he sat on the roof waiting for his vision to clear and the memory of that sickening stench to fade. Once he’d recovered sufficiently, Ollie crawled to the edge of the roof and looked down, examining the scene below and finding that the battle had shifted in favor of the hobgoblins.
There was something pleasing about that, despite the fact that the big brutes had been trying to kill him only a short while earlier. It was human nature, he supposed, to root for the living over the dead, even if the living were bloodthirsty brutes intent on killing him.
Just when it seemed as though the surviving hobgoblins were about to finish off the last of the horde, their dead companion rose, dead eyes lolling, machete still gripped in one hand. He stood shakily, intestines pouring from the hole in his gut as he promptly moved up to his closest former companion and brought the machete down hard against the other brute’s shoulder.
The blade gave off a loud metallic clinking sound as it made contact, clipping a makeshift leather and metal pauldron covering the hobgoblin’s shoulder and slicing into the figure’s arm. The blade bit deep just above the elbow, and the hobgoblin roared in pain, spinning around and bringing his own machete around in a savage swing that sunk into the zombie hobgoblin’s neck but not with sufficient force to pass all the way through.
The machete was stuck fast and, as the living hobgoblin tried to wrench the weapon out of his zombie companion’s neck, a pair of smaller goblin zombies lunged at his wounded arm and started biting. What followed was a gruesome struggle to the death, the end result of which was two zombie hobgoblins that now joined the smaller goblins in attacking the four hobgoblin brutes that still lived.
Holding a hand against his mouth, Ollie surveyed the scene and began planning his exit strategy. He could try to bolt while the goblins and hobgoblins were attacking one another. That was probably the smartest strategy and something he should have done a while ago. But he wanted the money that was coming his way, and there was also every chance that another wave of zombies would appear once these were dealt with, and Ollie wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle that.
Then again, the way things were currently looking, it was anyone’s guess as to who would win. There were four surviving hobgoblins battling it out for survival, but more than a dozen goblin zombies still survived in addition to the two undead hobgoblins.
The fighting was so vicious now, however, that Ollie wasn’t even considering the quest he’d picked up prior to all of this. Sure, failing the quest and being labeled with the Chicken Shit title for a while would suck, but at least he’d still be alive, and he’d still have all the money he’d gained so far.
As he watched one of the newly turned undead hobgoblins fall to the ground, its head toppling backward and landing in a pile of blood and gore, Ollie considered his options. The obvious choice, apart from running, was to wait until the last moment and then swoop in and take out whatever enemies were still standing. That was the smartest play and the strategy he was favoring.
The only problem with that approach was that there could still be another wave to the zombie horde and, if he got down off the roof and finished off whoever was left, he’d have to quickly get back up again if he wanted to survive the next attack. That would be much more problematic now than it had been getting up to the roof in the first instance because the metal box he’d jumped from was slick with blood and the ground below was also a bloodbath.
Even with his poncho and the goggles, it would still be incredibly risky trying to climb back up to safety. So, once he was down, his only realistic option would be to finish off the enemies and, if another wave arrived, run like hell and hope for the best. The other issue was that it looked like at least one of the hobgoblins would survive, whether living or dead, and either way that would mean facing a difficult enemy in treacherous terrain.
Whichever way he considered the problem, running was his best option, but Ollie already knew that he wasn’t going to run. Whether it was the excitement of being sucked into a real-world contest to the death with insane gaming mechanics or the adrenaline pumping through his body, he knew that running wasn’t going to be an option.
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There was something else, as well. Something his parents had seen in him even as a child. Ollie possessed an utterly baffling level of self-confidence. No matter the situation, no matter how unprepared or underqualified he was, he always saw success as the most likely outcome of any situation.
Even now, faced with a zombie horde and massive muscle-bound hobgoblins, Ollie only ever saw victory as a possibility. Yes, he would consider what could go wrong and try to mitigate those eventualities wherever possible. He would strategize and plan for the most favorable outcome. But ultimately, Ollie simply couldn’t see himself failing.
It was the same every time he saw a story on the news about an armed robber or a knife-wielding brute busting into a shopping center and threatening violence. Ollie always ran through the events and considered how he would act if he were caught in that situation, and every time, without fail, he’d end up disarming the assailant and saving the day. His mother had always said that this unrealistic confidence would get him killed one day or locked in prison.
Looking down at the carnage below, Ollie reflected that today could be the day his mother’s words came true. That thought led to other troubling questions. He hadn’t spoken with his parents in some time. They were halfway across the world, living in Forest Lake just outside of Brisbane in Australia. He guessed that they were stuck indoors, being forced to work at one of those computer terminals like everyone else caught in their houses.
Ollie felt a stab of guilt at the fact that he hadn’t even thought of his parents until that moment. But he quickly pushed that guilt back, realizing that the needs of the present outweighed his guilt. He could worry about his parents once he had crushed this contest and could actually do something to help them. Maybe if he picked up a killer class and racked up enough abilities, he’d be able to fly his ass back to Australia and bust them out of their house prison.
Before any of that, though, he needed to survive the next few minutes.
He looked down at the survivors struggling with one another below. The fight had been whittled down to three survivors: one living hobgoblin and a pair of larger goblin zombies, one of whom was biting into the brute’s neck and drawing a large volume of blood.
“Fuck a duck,” Ollie blurted, dropping his crowbar into his inventory and moving to the edge of the roof.
He slowly lowered himself down, arm muscles straining as he looked left and right, checking for more enemies. The coast was clear, so he focused on the area below, trying to find a suitable place to land. Dangling from the roof, he was still a good four feet above ground level, but he reasoned that the pile of zombie remains below would cushion his fall, provided he landed right.
The hobgoblin struggling to survive roared in frustration.
“Get off yous mucky muck!” he bellowed, ripping one of the surviving zombies off his throat and tearing a chunk of flesh away at the same time.
Ollie let go of the roof and fell. He landed with a wet squelch, his feet slipping on the pile of mush and sending him slapping against the ground so hard that it temporarily knocked the wind out of him and jarred his left arm. Cursing, he rolled off the pile of limbs and entrails, finding that some of the body parts were still moving, fingers and toes wriggling.
He got to his feet, his poncho covered in blood, and pulled the trusty crowbar from his inventory. As he approached the surviving hobgoblin, the brute held the last zombie’s head in one hand and was squeezing with the last of his strength. The head popped like a rotten pumpkin, sending gore outwards as the hobgoblin fell to his knees and swayed back and forth, eyes lolling, blood pouring from the wound on his neck and half a dozen other places.
Ollie walked around back, his stomach churning in response to the smell and the feel of dead goblin parts squishing beneath his toes. As he reached the hobgoblin, the brute was still kneeling, still clinging to life as the zombie virus burned through his body. Ollie set his feet, aiming the crowbar right at the side of the hobgoblin’s head and twisting so that he could put as much force into the blow as possible.
The crowbar hit the side of the brute’s head with a resounding thud, sending a shock up Ollie’s arm as it sent the head cracking to one side. The hobgoblin grunted, still staying on its knees and reaching up a hand to fumble at the fresh wound that Ollie had just made.
“Mucky… muck!” the hobgoblin gurgled, its body swaying like the mast of a ship amid rolling waves.
Ollie staggered, hefting the crowbar and setting himself to swing again. He grunted as he smacked the side of the brute’s head once more, this time with enough force to crack bone and wedge the end of the crowbar into the hobgoblin’s head. The sudden shift in direction caused Ollie’s feet to slip on something gooey and disgusting, and he fell to the ground just as the hobgoblin swung around and swiped a meaty fist through the air.
The hobgoblin fist narrowly missed Ollie on his downward trajectory, and as he hit the ground, he realized that his crowbar was still jutting from the side of the brute’s head. The hobgoblin looked down at Ollie, one eye milky white, one still retaining a little of its former amber color, as a mixture of blood and drool spilled from its open maw.
Before Ollie could shimmy out of the way, the hobgoblin fell on him, hands outstretched to try to grab him around the neck and presumably squeeze until his head popped off. The hobgoblin’s tremendous weight pressed down on top of Ollie, but the gore covering his poncho, in combination with the blood and slop underneath, meant that the force of the sudden pressing weight sent him squirting away like paste from a toothpaste tube.
He tucked his legs into his body as the hobgoblin landed right in front of him. The brute’s hands slammed into the ground to either side, and Ollie crab-walked a few feet to get clear of the hobgoblin as it grunted and tried blindly to reach for him, face buried in the gore.
Scrambling to get to his feet and finding that it was just about as easy as standing on a plastic sheet covered in washing detergent, Ollie shot his hands out to the side and slid his way toward the struggling hobgoblin and the crowbar. He reached the weapon a moment before pitching over onto his back, managing to reach out and grab the weapon and steady himself at the last minute.
The crowbar shifted a little but still held as Ollie tried to work himself around the back of the hobgoblin so that he was out of range of the brute’s massive hands. The hobgoblin turned its head, however, pushing itself up on one fist and sending Ollie—who was still gripping the crowbar—up into the air so that he was on top of the brute.
A moment later, the crowbar loosened sufficiently to come flying out, and Ollie was sent hurtling backward. A shower of blood and what looked like brain matter accompanied the crowbar, flying up into the air and squelching down on top of the hobgoblin as it slumped to the ground like a toy robot with its batteries ripped out.
Ollie fell onto the ground, rolled, and got to his feet shakily, his eyes tearing up from the horrific stench. For a few frantic moments, he scrambled around, trying to move into a defensive stance while his feet slipped mercilessly on the ground. He eventually fell hard, his knees cracking against one of the few portions of the ground that wasn’t covered in dead goblin or hobgoblin.
“FUCK!” he roared, eventually managing to stay standing.
He held the crowbar ready, looking down at the last hobgoblin and waiting to see whether it would rise and try to attack him.
>> KILL REWARD: 50 Belch Bucks
Ollie lowered his crowbar, letting it hang from his arm as he looked around. His relief at having killed the last enemy was tempered by the possibility that more zombies might appear at any moment and he’d either have to run for it or try to scramble back up to the roof. He stood with his chest heaving, looking left and right, waiting.
>> QUEST COMPLETE: Survive the Zombie Horde!
Congratulations! You have survived the zombie horde and killed or assisted in the killing of all enemies.
QUEST REWARD: Zombie Slayer title, 500 Belch Bucks
Ollie thrust a hand in the air. “Fuck yes!”
[Nero] Congratulations, Ollie. That was well done indeed. I recommend that you begin looting the bodies of the fallen. Because this was technically not a boss fight, you will not receive a loot box; however, any weapons, trinkets, or other items you find may be traded in for Belch Bucks at the nearest Vend-o-matic machine.
Ollie looked across the street at the vending machine he’d used before the fight. “Nice one.”
Having said that, he promptly turned to one side and emptied his stomach.